This series also includes great lifestyle changes for enhancing fitness, increasing your resistance to disease, and healthy changes to your mental and spiritual well-being. Health begins in the mind, with positive thoughts and a positive attitude. Learn to be creative, to pray, to give thanks, to be grateful, to forgive, and create your own reality.

Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30, is a physical state that simply means you have excessive body fat. Probably you have experienced the frustrations of dieting many times before if you have problems with your weight, especially since childhood. Nearly a hundred million Americans pursue a weight loss diet in any given year and as many as 95% of them regain the extra weight they had lost in the last five years.

Even worse than that, a third of dieters will gain back more weight than they lost, in danger of bouncing from one fad diet to another, and [...]]]>

A blending of the best of the web concerning weight loss tips and how to lose weight. There is a great deal we can do to lose weight that does not involve taking risky pills and medicines.

This series also includes great lifestyle changes for enhancing fitness, increasing your resistance to disease, and healthy changes to your mental and spiritual well-being. Health begins in the mind, with positive thoughts and a positive attitude. Learn to be creative, to pray, to give thanks, to be grateful, to forgive, and create your own reality.

Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30, is a physical state that simply means you have excessive body fat. Probably you have experienced the frustrations of dieting many times before if you have problems with your weight, especially since childhood. Nearly a hundred million Americans pursue a weight loss diet in any given year and as many as 95% of them regain the extra weight they had lost in the last five years.

Even worse than that, a third of dieters will gain back more weight than they lost, in danger of bouncing from one fad diet to another, and worse, bouncing up and down in weight, which is hard on your body. The traditional approach to weight problems, focusing on fad weight loss diets or weight loss drugs, have left some people with just as much weight and the additional burden of ill health.

Today, an estimated 65% of all American adults are either obese or overweight. Our culture obsesses about remaining lean and beautiful even as we grow older and fatter, but this isn’t about appearances. Obesity causes many serious and chronic health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and gallbladder disease. Obesity contributes to perhaps 400,000 deaths every year. The amount is probably higher.

Also, the public health costs for obesity are tremendous. Based upon the findings of researchers at Harvard University, obesity is a factor in 19% of all cases of heart disease with annual health costs estimated at $30 billion dollars; it’s also a factor in nearly 60% of diabetes cases, with health costs of $9 billion per year.

Weight Loss Diet Plans

No doubt you have fallen for one or more of the weight loss diet schemes over the years, promising quick and painless weight loss. Many of these quick weight loss diet programs undermine your health, cause physical discomfort, flatulence, and ultimately lead to disappointment when you start regaining weight shortly after losing it. Fad or quick weight loss diet programs generally over-stress one type of food. This goes against the fundamental principle of good nutrition – to remain healthy one must consume a balanced diet, which includes a variety of foods.

Safe, healthy, and permanent weight reduction is what’s truly lost among the thousands of popular diet programs that exist all over the net.

Some of the weight loss diet schemes reign supreme briefly, only to fade out. While some wane from popularity due to being unproductive or unsafe, some simply lose the public’s interest. People love fads and shortcuts. There are no shortcuts in life.

But that doesn’t mean the diets are bad or don’t work. Examples of diets that have worked for many people include the South Beach Diet, Atkins diet, the Grapefruit diet, Cabbage Soup diet, the Rotation diet, Beverly Hills diet, Breatharian, Ornish Plan – the list goes on and on. The reason is because most of these diets are based on sound scientific principles, even if they’re not perfect or the whole answer.

Often, more important than which particular diet you’re on is how disciplined you are to sticking with it, eating sensibly, and exercising along with your dieting. Without regular exercise, to be honest, most diets will have limited results. When used together, exercise and diet can produce truly incredible results.

Many diets often advocate specific techniques of greatly reducing certain foods from your diet like overly-refined or processed carbohydrates (rather than eating whole grain foods), or restricting calories with the basic idea that the body has to turn to itself to get the energy it needs, essentially converting matter (your fat) into energy (lean muscle mass: ie, exercise). This burning of your body’s fat and calories is called catabolism, which typically starts with the breakdown of stored body fat. A faster metabolism increases catabolism.

If Dr. Oz touts it on the Opera Winfrey show, you’d better believe something’s shaking. And Mike over at naturalnews.com calls it, “The Miracle Nutrient for Cancer, cholesterol and Longevity.” He also offers the fascinating fact that “The Chinese medicine herb hu zhang is also loaded with resveratrol.”

Resveratrol is of a class of polyphenols called phytoalexins, which is from the Greek word “alexi” or “protect.”

Very rarely has a natural substance ever been discovered that actually extends our youthful life span and allows us to live significantly longer. Resveratrol is a wonderful gift from nature (and for the ladies, helps keep skin smooth and free of wrinkles).

As reported by a National Institute on Aging/Harvard Medical School joint study, it was found that resveratrol enhances the anti-aging systems in the body, duplicating the anti aging health effects of calorie-restricted diets, as well as improves our general quality of life.

Researchers in Denmark examined 25,000 people to discover what drinking alcohol does to longevity, and found that wine drinkers lowered their [...]]]>

Resveratrol is one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries of the last 10 years for your healh and wellness.

If Dr. Oz touts it on the Opera Winfrey show, you’d better believe something’s shaking. And Mike over at naturalnews.com calls it, “The Miracle Nutrient for Cancer, cholesterol and Longevity.” He also offers the fascinating fact that “The Chinese medicine herb hu zhang is also loaded with resveratrol.”

Resveratrol is of a class of polyphenols called phytoalexins, which is from the Greek word “alexi” or “protect.”

Anti-Aging and Longevity:
Life Extension

Very rarely has a natural substance ever been discovered that actually extends our youthful life span and allows us to live significantly longer. Resveratrol is a wonderful gift from nature (and for the ladies, helps keep skin smooth and free of wrinkles).

As reported by a National Institute on Aging/Harvard Medical School joint study, it was found that resveratrol enhances the anti-aging systems in the body, duplicating the anti aging health effects of calorie-restricted diets, as well as improves our general quality of life.

Researchers in Denmark examined 25,000 people to discover what drinking alcohol does to longevity, and found that wine drinkers lowered their total risk of mortality for any reason by about 40% (of course these people were drinking 2 – 4 glasses a day with meals, not abusing alcohol, which is terribly destructive to your liver).

But the beautiful thing is, you don’t have to restrict your diet (caloric intake), and you can even eat fatty foods like french fries and cheeseburgers. Additional scientific experiments have discovered that resveratrol extends the overall length of life in laboratory animals. In a growing number of studies, scientists who give a resveratrol supplement every day to mice help them live 20% longer! This is truly astounding!

And for those women who want to be slim, the mice in one study who were on controlled, high calorie diets and given resveratrol had 30% less overall body mass than the other mice. That means possibly a little less muscle and mostly less body fat.

It also increases the health of mice on a high fat diet. Mice that were fed high fat diets had the same body composition and lipid profiles of healthy, lean mice on low-fat diets!. As long as you take your resveratrol supplement every day, you won’t suffer the consequences of a high fat diet. You’ll even live longer.

Genuine life-extension now exists in pills. And Resveratrol is only one of several true life-extension supplements. Watch for my upcoming book.  Melatonin, for example, is another supplement that has been shown to increase the lifespan of animals by about 30%. Interested in Melatonin? Check out my article on melatonin here.

Natural, Healthy Foods

Resveratrol is mostly found in high amounts in the skins of red grapes, but also in raspberries, mulberries, blueberries, cranberries, and it wouldn’t be a complete party without the red wine (make from red grapes). It also exists in peanuts, certain pine trees and knotweed.

It is produced by the grapes as a defense mechanism against injury, and acts similarly to an antibiotic which protects the fruit from predatory viruses and bacteria which would prevent the fruit from ripening too early and spoiling.

Remember, resveratrol is only one of the best extracts from grapes. Grapes contain hundreds of other compounds, some called polyphenols, many of which are also beneficial and have yet to even be studied. So look for supplements that contain the whole grape, and don’t always focus too narrowly on one supplement, even if it is as powerful as resveratrol.

Remember, nature and supplements work in synergy. It’s the combined effects of hundreds or even thousands of different compounds from foods, herbs, etc that produce the incredible longevity and anti-aging effects we like to write about. The greater variety of sources for your food and antioxidants the better.

Ok, if you have to ask, the primary strains of grapes are vitis vinifera, vitis rotundifolia and vitis labrusca. And in case you were wondering, “Resveratrol is also present in the roots of a number of species of the polygonum genus (polygonaceae family), such as polygonum cuspidatum and polygonum multiflorum.” Some people just don’t know when to quit.

French people have a notoriously high-fat diet, with lots of creamy pasta dishes loaded with delicious calories. Yet they have little heart disease or problems with being overweight. Why? Resveratrol.

It is customary for the French to drink a glass or two of red wine with their meals. The healthy chemicals in the grapes used to make the red wine – one of the best being resveratrol - protects them from the harmful effects of the fat in their diet. And it will protect you too.